There is an interesting post on Bjørn Stærk’s blog on his changing views of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq.
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Evolving viewsDecember 14th, 2005 |
 13 comments to Evolving views |
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Oh please. Bush had no choice but to focus on the WMD factor because that was the only way he could have gotten the others to go along, and there were plenty of other good reasons for invading Iraq. And even that was debatable because he did not have any special intelligence data that indicated otherwise, no matter what his critics said. He made the best possible choice given the data.
It was a fact that Saddam did not fully comply with the UN requirements. And nobody ever bothered to ask, “What happens if Saddam doesn’t do as we say?”
In the minds of the left, that’s all right. They would let a murderer like Tookie go just because he has proclaimed his repentence. They would let a tyrant like Saddam off the hook because… well, just because.
I wonder how our value system had been so controlled by the leftists that WMDs and sheer self-preservation of their insane beliefs had become more important than the murder of people.
Very encouraging to see a thoughtful and humble well written post. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it but I cheer the fact that the writer was able to look at the scene cleanly and without too many filters of fixed ideas.
Those who abuse Bush, Blair and Howard as liars regarding WMD, conveniently overlook that nobody, to my knowledge, in the anti-war factions ever said Saddam did not have WMD. Everyone believed he had WMD and the only dispute was should Iraq be invaded or the UN be allowed to prevaricate for another year or three or more.
Personally, I never said he did or didn’t have “weapons of mass distruction,” I said that it was irrelevant. Iraq had just as much right to have whatever weapons as any other country. I did expect that, regardless of what might have been there before, something would be “found” after the conquest, even if it was only chlorine from a swimming pool.
I was opposed both to the invasion and the UN.
The issue wasn’t that he possessed WMD or not. The issue was that he did not allow outsiders to confirm without a doubt that he did not possess WMD. It’s not just the having WMDs that violated the UN’s instructions. It was that he did not cooperate fully.
If he had cooperated fully, and in the unlikely event the UN, despite completely unrestricted access to Iraq facilities, failed to find WMDs, then there would have been no invasion for Iraq because the US domestic agenda was such that the lives and freedom of the Iraqis weren’t worth a damn.
Like I said, nobody(except the US and its allies) bothered to ask, “What if Saddam tried to obstruct our investigators?”
And what’s more, the issue of WMDs has never been defined sufficiently to my satisfaction. Let’s say we have a bunch of chemicals sitting in a military lab. No sarin, just the 3 precursor compounds. WMD? Strictly speaking, no, but the intent was there all the same. And the efforts in Iraq have found such evidence. So no WMDs, but the facilities to make them doesn’t count?
To take this to the extreme, let’s say we have two enriched plutonium hemispheres lying outside the casing mechanism. It’s only a WMD when you put them together?
In this modern age where any half competent scientist can cobble up terrors(methylmercury comes to mind) in a decently stocked lab, possession has become less important than intent and precedent.
Poor Bush. It’s not really his fault that half his electorate refuse to think. Actually, I’m not that convinced that all of the other half thinks either.
“Iraq had just as much right to have whatever weapons as any other country.”
Ken Hagler, that is the whole point. Iraq had no such right.
Following their invasion of Kuwait most of the world went to war against Iraq and threw them out. As part of the ceasefire agreement Iraq signed away its rights to any such weapons and agreed to cooperate, completely and unconditionially, with UN inspectors in order to ensure it was adhering to the terms it had accepted.
There is no question but that in obstructing the inspectors Iraq unilaterally broke the ceasefire agreement. The only matter under discussion was how to deal with Iraqs behaviour. Many countries prefered to take the attitude that Iraq should be allowed to break its agreements with impunity, and others that they should be enforced.
Regardless, in breaking the ceasefire agreement it was Iraq, not the allies, who reinitiated hostilities.
Some people don’t understand the concept of “intention”.
It’s just a bit of wiring in their brain that can’t fire and make the connection.
They need gentle, simple sentences, repeated distinctly and clearly.
That’s why the misrepresentations in ‘old media’ are so horrendous, and quite rightly under attack.
It’s why newspaper circulation is decreasing. Dramatically.
They print rubbish when they should be working a little bit harder to find out the truth. They get exposed. Then the people who are quick learners stop buying that paper because they’ve lost confidence in the reportage.
One way to stay afloat is to buy Auto Trader and suck the profits out in order to continue being a mine of misinformation.
Jusy saying…
John, I seem to remember that the CIA released a report before the war saying Saddam had WMD’s. That said many of the Dems did think Iraq was a threat, Dean said it on a Canadian talk show back in the day, the Senators voted for authorizing force, and so on.
Right now The Foundation is debating this very issue, one guy (I assume it was a guy, might be a woman) compared Saddam giving WMD to alquada as creating a global Janjweed militia and points out that everyone thought he had WMD’s, another contributer points out Saddam let inspectors in.
Peace,
Chris
Saddam allowed inspectors in. However, he made several places off-limits, or that inspectors had to arrange several days in advance for a visit.
The anti-war types refused to see the problems inherent in that.
I think Staerk really never understood the WMD problem. He said that:
Now for a thread that is less relevant than it may seem, Iraq’s illusory nuclear program. We thought we’d find it, and we didn’t…The fear of a nuclear program was the main justification for the war
I don’t think any serious analyst thought Saddam had an operational nuclear program or that he could have created a nuke that terrorist could use. The major threat poised by Saddam lay in his ability to produce chemical weapons like nerve gas that could be used to devastating effect by terrorist.
It is quite clear even now that he could produce physically small but massively destructive quantities of nerve gas at anytime of his choosing prior to the invasion.
Staerk seems to feel lied to because he misunderstood the core WMD problem.
Staerk seems to feel lied to because he misunderstood the core WMD problem.
That seems to be a very common theme on the left. The reasoning seems to be that Bush lied because someone misunderstood what he said, or the people complaining were going by the media’s representations of what Bush said, instead of the man’s actual words.
I come across this fairly often (living in Seattle…)- people will claim Bush said X, which was wrong… but when you ask for the specific quote, they don’t have one.
It is very frustrating.
rosignol – yes, it can be very frustrating, and it is also a telling indicator of where they are coming from …
When a good friend repeats one of these themes or memes, and I ask him on what he bases his belief, he tends to fall back on either MSM or “everyone knows” … when confronted with verifiable facts, he changes the subject, often with “but every does it” …
So now, as I find the corroborated items to support or refute the memes, I save ’em – and the next moonbat finds himself cut off patellarly …
I think that President Bush was fairly honest and that many of his people (inculding the oft attacked Donald R.) were and are competent.
The whole posting seems to assume the problem was either with the honesty of President Bush and his people, or with their competence.
The standard “oh if only we had better leaders X. Y. Z. government activity would work better”.
Of course Iraq has been a blood soaked mess. Having a different people in the Administration or a different President (as John McVain seems to think) would not have made any big difference.
Perhaps Iraq war was unavidable (due to the left over disputes from 1991) or perhaps it was a really big mistake – but either way it was allways going to be big trouble (government activities allways are).
Let us hope that the new government of Iraq is O.K. (by the low standards one has to judge govenments by) and that British and American forces can start to come home next year.